Hope you're all ok with trying out this initiative idea. I've been a bit worried that the Us vs Them style (which I find is great for pace) might lead to a "surprise, you're all dead" should, say, the monsters in this battle have won initiative (as then Paws would've absorbed the full force of their might). So, if players *always* go first (with the exception of surprise rounds), then the system doesn't punish players for bad luck on init rolls... BUT, this makes init useless (and some of you may have put your Dex where you did just to improve your init scores, I dunno. Or you might take a feat to do that, but you wouldn't under this system). So, I thought we could do this Advantage thing instead.
If it works out, I'll be creating a feat to support it as well (something like: Fast Reactions: +2 Initiative. Your initiative Advantage bonus lasts for the duration of the combat. At the end of each round, your initiative result is reduced by 4).